P.G. Smith Author

Feeling like it’s an uphill battle? Fighting the crowds. Finding a parking place. Wondering if your online purchases will arrive in time. Wondering what to buy. Stressing over your kids’ very expensive ‘here’s what I want’ list.

You don’t have to do it. I know. I know. It feels like you have to do it. We all feel that push. But that feeling of obligation has been foisted on us by our commercial culture. The commercialization of Christmas is so incredibly out of hand that we shouldn’t even call is Christmas anymore.

Do you by chance remember what Christmas was actually about? The birth of a savior. A savior who would bring peace and love to the entire world. Peace on earth and good will to all people. That’s what Christmas was supposed to be about.

The ideal of universal love and peace. You don’t have to be religious to recognize the birth of a wonderful ideal. An aspiration that could transform the world and human life. What happened to that? Such a great idea; and we replaced it with shopping.

It was sort of an accident, this idea of giving gifts. It was a little side story, a subplot of the main message. Three kings brought gifts. And this was not even really about the gifts. It was about the recognition of great wise men from far away, that this was the birth of a transformative idea: universal peace and good will. It was not a local idea. Not just for this tribe, or this nation, but for all people everywhere.

And certainly, Christmas has spread to many countries around the world, but somehow it didn’t take peace and love with it. Only the gifts and decorations. Especially in the past century, the marvel of modern marketing has made Christmas the commercial bonanza of a great many industries.

But we don’t have to let ourselves be sucked into what ought to be called outrageous consumer consumption month. Happy Consumer Consumption Month! we should be saying. Or else we could stop–or at least cut back a whole lot. Start doing things that represent what Christmas really should stand for: helping the poor and sick, giving to charity, feeding the hungry, making peace with someone you have been at war with, trying to understand someone else’s point of view, telling your senator or representative that you are against war and aggression, telling other people that our country should stand for peace.

We could do it. We could celebrate peace and love. I know we could if we tried harder. (And you wouldn’t have to shop to do it.)